Saturday, November 16, 2013

DISCOVERIES AT THE BURTON HISTORICAL COLLECTION

am fortunate to have easy access to the Burton Historical
Collection at the Detroit Public Library, 5201 Woodward Avenue, Detroit,
Michigan (313-481-1401). While the library emphasizes records on the history of
Detroit and Michigan, there are countless resources on the Great Lakes region,
New England, the South, the Mid-Atlantic states, as well as foreign countries. There
are books, microfilm, maps, photographs, business records, scrapbooks, military
records, manuscripts, census schedules, vital records, church records, family
histories, newspapers and more. For a
list of the many resources, see the PDF files located at the bottom of the
page on this link: http://www.detroit.lib.mi.us/featuredcollection/burton-historical-collection

When you first enter the Burton collection you will see
banks of card catalog drawers—just like in the old days. (You can, of course,
search for items online.)

I stopped here to perform some surname searches. After
jotting down my findings on a piece of paper, I entered the main room and asked
a librarian for guidance. She needed to
obtain a few of the items offsite.

BOOKS

In the meantime, I browsed the stacks. Some
of the books I chose to review were:

“Seventh-Day Baptist Church of Brookfield,” Tree Talks, Sep
2009, Vol. 49, no. 3, p. 149. (Here I found a number of references to my
Crandalls, Burdicks, Babcocks and Clarks.)

CLIPPING FILES

At my request, a librarian brought me a clipping file
containing references to the surname “Scripture.” In the clipping file, I
discovered a newspaper article about Dulcie Scripture, a former Detroit
resident, who was Miss Illinois in 1969. In this article I learned, among other
things, that she was the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. George Scripture of
Hamilton, Ohio. (1) Because the Scripture
surname is so unique, it is possible that Dulcie is a distant cousin.

Another article from the clipping file was an obituary for
Charles M. Scripture, a Detroit architect, who died in 1982. (2) This was filled with genealogical information
and will be a great source for further research.

As you can see, The Burton Historical Collection does not
just contain Michigan information.

If you don’t live near Detroit, you can still enjoy some of
the benefits of the Burton via the Internet. For example, if you look at the
right side of their Biography and Genealogy page (http://www.detroit.lib.mi.us/research-resources/databases/biography-and-genealogy),
you will see a database search box. Click the drop down menu to Biography and
Genealogy. Here you will find a Biography and Genealogy Master Index. Enter the
surname you are searching. I used “Scripture” and received 8 hits. One of them
was a citation to Who’s Who in America for William Ellis Scripture, my 1st
cousin 4 X removed. Another database you
can search from home is Heritage Quest Online (http://www.heritagequestonline.com/hqoweb/library/do/index).
Here you can search census records, books, PERSI, Revolutionary War records,
Freedman’s Bank and the U.S. Serial Set.